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(February 2025) -- We have added historical coverage of Cuba's national tournament to the Unpage site! Click on the left side of this page to explore past Cuba national and region tournaments. As part of this expansion, we are commencing our coverage of the 2025 Cuba national tournament -- click for details. If you can provide results or pairings for Cuban tournaments that are not listed on this site, please contact the Unpage.
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Our coverage of the Cuba national tournament launched on February 17, 2025. Click to contact the webmaster with any comments or questions about this site.
Baseball first came to Cuba in the 19th century, when Cuban students returning from studies at U.S. colleges and U.S. sailors whose ships made port calls on the island began to spread the game. In subsequent years, both amateur and professional baseball leagues thrived in Cuba, and in 1949, Little League Baseball Founder Carl Stotz traveled to Cuba to discuss the potential of setting up leagues as Little League began to expand internationally.
No leagues were formed in that era, and the only Cuba-based participant in the first 75 years of the international tournament was a league based at the U.S.'s Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, which competed in the 1997 Latin America Region tournament in Venezuela.
The seeds that later enabled Little League Baseball to take root in Cuba were planted in March 2016, when Barack Obama became the first U.S. president since Calvin Coolidge in 1928 to visit the island. As part of Obama's state visit, U.S. and Cuban officials arranged an exhibition baseball game between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cuban national team at Havana's Estadio Latinamericano.
Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred invited Stephen D. Keener, President and CEO of Little League Baseball, to join MLB's delegation for this landmark event, and on the trip, Keener met and began to form relationships with representatives of the Cuban Baseball Federation (FCB) and the Cuban National Institute of Sports, Physical Education, and Recreation. In subsequent months, Little League and Cuban Baseball Federation officials met several times, deepening their relationships, gaining a broader understanding of their counterparts' organization, and identifying ways Little League and the FCB might work together to support youth baseball in Cuba.
Three years after their initial meeting, on March 6, 2019, Little League Baseball and the Cuban Baseball Federation announced an agreement that aligned Cuba's local youth baseball programs with Little League Baseball. The Memorandum of Understanding, which was later extended through 2025, meant that approximately 170 local leagues across age divisions would be chartered with Little League Baseball, and that Cuban leagues would compete in the international tournament as part of the Caribbean Region.
Because of the timing of the announcement, for 2019, no Cuba national tournament was played, and the winner of the Havana local tournament was chosen as Cuba's representative in the region tournament. The Havana team played Cuba's first game in the international tournament on July 14 of that year, when they dropped a 1-0 decision to Pariba Little League (Curacao) in a Caribbean Region tournament pool matchup at Refineria Isla Post 6 Ballpark in Willemstad, Curacao. Havana quickly won its remaining four pool games, and was eliminated after a 2-0 loss to Pabao Little League (Curacao) in the semifinal round.
The next year, Cuba held its first national tournament. Cuba is comprised of 15 provinces and a special municipal area (Isla de la Juventud), and the champions of each of these areas qualify for the national tournament. The national tournament involves four rounds, each of which consists of best 2-of-3 series, and the bracket is arranged based on geographic proximity. Bayamo Little League from Granma province won the inaugural Cuban championship, which was completed before the COVID-19 pandemic led to the cancellation of the 2020 international tournament.
During the 2019 Little League World Series, Little League Baseball announced a future expansion of the Little League World Series from 16 to 20 qualifiers. As part of this expansion, the champions of Cuba, Panama, and Puerto Rico would earn direct entry into the Little League World Series on a rotating schedule, with two of the three holding region status each year, and the third playing through the region tournament appropriate for its geography. The rotation began in 2022, with Cuba playing through the Caribbean Region tournament that year before advancing its champion directly to South Williamsport in 2023 and 2024. Cuba's champion has continued to advance to either the Caribbean Region tournament or the Little League World Series based on the rotation's schedule from this point forward.
Two Cuban leagues have participated in the Little League World Series. Bayamo Little League earned Cuba's first-ever win at the Little League World Series on August 17, 2023, when they defeated Hills Little League (Sydney, Australia), 11-1.
| Cuba Little League World Series Qualifiers | |
| Year | League |
| 2024 | Santa Clara (Villa Clara province) |
| 2023 | Bayamo (Granma province) |
 Great Lakes Region |
Mountain Region |
Southeast Region |
| Metro Region |
New England Region |
Southwest Region |
| Mid-Atlantic Region |
Northwest Region |
West Region |
| Midwest Region |
| Australian Region |
Cuba NEW FOR 2025! |
France NEW FOR 2025! |
| Canadian Region |
Czechia NEW FOR 2025! |
Japanese Region |
| Alabama |
Illinois |
New York |
| Alaska |
Indiana |
North Carolina |
| Arizona |
Iowa |
Ontario |
| British Columbia |
Kansas |
Oregon |
| California (Northern) |
Maine |
Pennsylvania |
| California (Southern) |
Maryland |
Rhode Island |
| Colorado |
Massachusetts |
Tennessee NEW FOR 2025! |
| Connecticut |
Michigan |
Texas (East and West) |
| Delaware |
Minnesota |
Vermont |
| District of Columbia |
Montana |
Virginia |
| Florida |
Nevada |
Washington |
| Georgia |
New Hampshire |
Wisconsin |
| Hawaii |
New Jersey |
Wyoming |
| Idaho |
New Mexico |
| Central Region |
Southern Region |
Western Region |
| Eastern Region |
| Region 1 |
Region 4 |
Region 7 |
| Region 2 |
Region 5 |
Region 8 |
| Region 3 |
Region 6 |
Links to tournament coverage